Isaboe
Isaboe is the Queen of Lumatere and the female protagonist of Finnikin of the Rock. Biography Early Life When Queen Tilda became pregnant with Isaboe, her fifth child, she was well past the age of safe childbirth. She became ill and it seemed like the pregnancy was not meant to be. Wanting Isaboe to be born safely, Tilda made an offering to the Goddess Lagrami and the Goddess Sagrami in the form of a cherry blossom tree. Although many people were unhappy with her choice to make an offering to the Goddess Sagrami, the two halves of the Goddess were appeased and Isaboe lived. Isaboe had a happy childhood, and was much loved by her parents and older siblings. Her family called her 'our little Mont girl', because she had inherited her mother's looks. Lady Beatriss of the Flatlands was nursemaid to Isaboe and her brother Balthazar, who both often made it difficult for her as they liked making mischief. The Queen had raised her children to see no differences between themselves and the villagers, and so Isaboe and her siblings often visited the palace village, who treated them 'like they belonged to them'. Isaboe sometimes joined in the games that Balthazar played with their cousin Lucian and friend Finnikin. One game involved Isaboe's hair being tied to a pole, and another, a re-enactment of the story of the goddess creating Lumatere, involved her being dragged by her hair by Balthazar. In another game, Isaboe was forced to be bait as Balthazar, Finnikin and Lucian pretended to trap the legendary silver wolf that only a great warrior could kill. When Finnikin, Lucian and Balthazar made a blood sacrifice on the rock of three wonders to protect the royal family, they pulled a strand of hair from Isaboe's head to use in the sacrifice. Once, when Isaboe and Finnikin were playing in the woods, Seranonna met them and spoke a prophecy that neither children ever forgot. Isaboe and Finnikin played together more often when Balthazar began to learn how to rule the kingdom. As a child Isaboe showed great talent as a healer, and she was proud of this. Once, she managed to mend her cat's broken bones. However, as Finnikin recalled in Finnikin of the Rock, no one knew that Isaboe had broken her cat's bones herself first. A few months before the unspeakable, Balthazar told Isaboe a story of a unicorn that appeared in the Forest of Lumatere only to a princess. Believing it to be true, Isaboe wanted to see the unicorn. Over the next months Isaboe and Balthazar would sneak into the Forest of Lumatere through a loose brick in the wall of the kingdom so that Isaboe could see the unicorn. After the unspeakable occured, Isaboe believed that the enemy had seen her and Balthazar coming into the Forest through the wall and that that was how they entered the kingdom and murdered her family. Because of this Isaboe blamed herself for the murders of her family. On the night the assassins came, Isaboe and Balthazar were in the Forest of Lumatere. They trapped the silver wolf in the hole that Lucian , Balthazar and Finnikin had dug and covered with foliage. When the assassin gave chase, Balthazar hid Isaboe in a burrow and led the assassin to the trap. Later, Isaboe returned to the main gate, but it was locked and she knew that something terrible had happened in the palace just as it had in the Forest. She returned to the Forest and found Seranonna of the Forest Dwellers and led her to the dug-out, where Balthazar lay dead alongside the assassin, torn to pieces. Isaboe killed the silver wolf with Balthazar's crossbow. Seranonna buried the wolf and Balthazar together for Isaboe. When the death bells from the palace began to sound, Seranonna realized that Isaboe may be the only surviving member of the royal family. She arranged Balthazar's fingers and ears on the grass before her, and Isaboe's clothes and hair as well, to make the assassins believe that Isaboe had died, not Balthazar. Then Isaboe fled through the Forest, away from Lumatere, the beginning of her ten years of exile. Childhood in Exile At some point in her childhood in exile, Isaboe was caught by the slave traders of Sorel and sold to a wealthy merchant to work in the Mines of Sorel. Isaboe spent more than a year as a slave, and it was at that time she met Majorontai, a Southern Yut woman captured by foreigners coming into Yutlind Sud to be sold as a slave. They became very close. Isaboe taught Majorontai how to speak the Lumateran language and Majorontai taught Isaboe how to speak Yut. One day, Majorontai placed a flower in Isaboe's hand, which she procured from the household guards. She made Isaboe promise to put it to good use that night. Isaboe promised. Majorontai ate the plant, and died, and years later Isaboe returned Majorontai's name to her kingdom for the ghosts to capture when she travelled to Yutlind Sud with Finnikin, Sir Topher and Trevanion in search of the Lumateran Guard. Isaboe used her poison to escape from her enslavement. The night when Isaboe began her first bleeding, she had a wondrous dream, so wondrous that she truly believed that she was in the arms of the Goddess Lagrami. That night she walked her first sleep with an infant in her arms. The infant was Vestie, the child of Lady Beatriss, though Isaboe did not discover that until much later. During later nights in which she walked the sleep, she began to notice another presence with her and the child. Isaboe believed that it had both dark and light in it, and that it was there to protect the child from the horrors of what they saw in the dreams. After escaping from Sorel, Isaboe soon found herself in Sarnak. She lived in a camp full of Lumateran exiles, who mostly hailed from the river village of Tressor (where Trevanion was from). It was during this time Isaboe participated in a card game and won her father's lost ruby ring back. However soon after the camp was attacked by Sarnak hunters, who slaughtered the exiles. They were brutal and efficient, killing any exiles who tried to run or beg. Isaboe escaped by faking her own death. She pulled the arrow out of someone already dead, and plunged it just above her heart so the hunters would believe she was dead. She bit her tongue in order to prevent from crying out because of the pain. That very night, Isaboe walked through the sleep of Lady Beatriss, who whispered, 'The Cloister of Sendecane'. Isaboe believed it to be a sign that she should stop travelling from kingdom to kingdom and go there. So she walked barefoot for two weeks to the Cloister of Lagrami in Sendecane. Once there, she took the name of Evanjalin. She was fifteen when she arrived, and remained there until she was around seventeen, when Finnikin of the Rock and Sir Topher came to get her. At the Cloister, Isaboe took the Vow of Silence, which helped her deal with the torment of her past. During this time Tildie, the Duke's ward (and illegitimate child) from Belegonia was sent into hiding, along with her young son Tolliver, so that the Duchess would not murder her. Isaboe and the other girls of the Cloister did not know Tildie's story, but were amazed at Tolliver, as he was the first male ever to be brought to the Cloister. Isaboe found peace in the cloister, because the novices and Priestess there were trained to keep emotions to a minimum. Journey to reclaim Lumatere Finnikin and Sir Topher travel to Sendecence because Finnkin believes his childhood friend, the lost Prince Balthazar to be there. However when they arrive, they find a girl named Evanjalin (Isaboe's disguise) who wants to be reunited with her people, the Monts, and walks the sleep of her people. She also maintains that Prince Balthazar is alive. Finnikin begrudingly agrees to journey with her. During their travels they pass through Sarnak, where a thief (Froi ) steals Isaboe's ruby ring and sells it to a peddler from Osteria. They later on capture Froi and take him with them. Isaboe's plan is later discovered to not only be reuinted with the Monts, but to help Finnikin's father Trevanion break out of the Sorel Mines, so he can join his Guard again and take back Lumatere. For this reason, she lies to Sorelian soldiers and says that Finnikin claims to be the lost Prince Balthazar. As this is suggested to be treason against the Imposter King of Lumatere, Finnikin is arrested and sent to the Sorel Mines. There he is reunited with Trevanion after ten years of separation, and together they escape. Once Finnikin, Isaboe (still disguised as Evanjalin), Trevanion, Sir Topher and Froi are together again, they journey to Yutlind to find the rest of the King's Guard. From there they travel back to the Valley of Tranquility and to the Charyn/Osteria border, where they meet the Monts. Lucian of the Monts recognizes who Evanjalin really is, and tells Finnikin the truth - that Prince Balthazar died, but his youngest sister Isaboe lived. Then, along with the Monts and all the exiles, Isaboe and Finnikin break the curse at the gates of Lumatere, and their army takes back their kingdom. Reign as Queen Isaboe of Lumatere In order to avoid a war across all of Skuldenore, Isaboe orders the Impostor King and his men to be poisoned. Therefore they are punished, without revealing the truth - that Charyn invaded Lumatere ten years previously, just so they could gain access to Belegonia and one day invade. This angers Finnikin, who wanted Charyn to face justice for their suffering. Instead, Trevanion, Perri and the Priestking train Froi for the next three years to become an assassin, to kill the King of Charyn, which he is sent to do in Froi of the Exiles. Sometime during these three years, she marries Finnikin and gives birth to Jasmina. Isaboe sends Froi to Charyn to kill the King, although she is worried and afraid for him, as she believes that she will lose him. She experiences hatred towards the Charynites for killing her family, cannot forgive them. By the end of Froi of the Exiles Isaboe is pregnant with her second child. She asks Lady Beatriss for help looking after Jasmina and suggests Sennington become a school of learning run by the Priestking. During her pregnancy Isaboe begins to walk the sleep again, and walks the sleep of a strange girl with her unborn child. One night she wakes up calling Froi's name. Finnikin hears her and an argument ensues, resulting in Finnikin's departure for Charyn to kill Gargarin of Abroi. Later Isaboe hears of Vestie's meeting in the valley with the strange girl and realises that the girl is Quintana of Charyn. She attempts to kill Quintana out of revenge for the deaths of her family, but is stopped by Phaedra and the knowledge that Quintana is pregnant. Soon after Finnikin returns from Charyn, with news that Gargarin of Abroi is not the man Lumatere had thought he was, and that he is also Froi's father. Isaboe is shocked at the revelation, and also at hearing that Froi and Quintana are somehow connected. She takes part in the meetings with the Priestking discussing the origins of Charyn's curse, and is horrified to discover that the kingdom was cursed by the rage and pain of the innocent, unborn children. Upon learning that the unborn only speak and understand the 'tongue of the innocent', Isaboe strives to learn it so that she can speak the words she wants to her child in the womb. The time comes for Isaboe's unborn child to be blessed. The oldest woman on the mountain predicts that Isaboe's babe will be male, and that he would come into the world with secrets. She tells Isaboe that her milk is strong and will feed a king. At the woman's prompting, Isaboe speaks to her babe in the tongue of the innocent, begging him to be her guide and help her rid herself of her hate and fury. In time, Isaboe goes into labour, but the babe is born dead, strangled by the umbilical cord which was around its neck. Isaboe and Finnikin grieve their loss. Isaboe arranges that her son be buried alongside Finnikin's half-sister, baby Evanjalin, in Sennington. Broken by her loss, she is even more upset at Tesadora's absence, who she had thought would be there to help her birth her babe. That night, Isaboe dreams of her son, who tells her to go down to the valley. Though most of those on the mountain are horrified by the thought, Finnikin, who had dreamt of his mother that night, convinces them to help her. They go down to the valley as a unit, and Isaboe demands to see Quintana of Charyn. Although reluctant, Donashe agrees to it. Isaboe soon sees that Quintana is secretly in labour. Physical Description Isaboe is tall with dark hair and dark eyes. She has the colouring of the Lumateran Mont people. In Finnikin of the Rock her hair is shorn and she is dressed in the shift of a Lagrami novice, but in Froi of the Exiles her hair is described as dark and long. Personality Isaboe is intelligent, cunning, and has a large capacity to love. When she travels with Finnikin and Sir Topher she shows that she will do anything to survive and take back her kingdom and save her people. Abilities Relationships Finnikin Jasmina Tesadora Vestie Lady Beatriss Balthazar Lucian Yata Relatives Appearances *''Finnikin of the Rock '' *''Froi of the Exiles '' *''Quintana of Charyn '' Category:Characters Category:Protagonists Category:Finnikin of the Rock Category:Froi of the Exiles Category:Quintana of Charyn Category:Lumateran Royal Family Category:Exiles